By Áine Kelly-Costello
Opinion - On Monday, as Stuff began the process of apologising to Māori for 163 years of coverage involving racism, stigma and harmful stereotypes, I flicked between the outlet's in-depth features and my Twitter feed.
If media produced is going to be reflective of Aotearoa in all its diversity, it helps if the people producing it look like Aotearoa. Photo: 123rf
I am Pākehā, and don't for a moment pretend to understand the entrenched pain of living as Māori, or otherwise as a black, indigenous or person of colour, in our society built on colonialism and white supremacy.
But from the lens of being a disabled person who's also worked as a journalist, I feel both for the reporters working to make a dent in institutional practices that have severed the trust of communities for centuries, and equally for those Māori who feel safest by keeping at a distance from the media, apology or not.
Disabled people, too, are often caught between wanting the chance for our stories and perspectives to be platformed, on the one hand, and the fear of their misrepresentation, on the other.
Despite the fact that we're as individual as any non-disabled person, simplistic, stereotyped, voyeuristic or ableist media representations still impact upon perceptions about disabled people collectively.
That's a shame, because there are so many fascinating, complex, nuanced, thought-provoking stories journalists could be telling instead. Here are five tips for starting to change the script.
Centre disabled voices
This sounds obvious, but it bears repeating. When disabled people's perspectives are front and centre in stories, we should stop being portrayed as silent grateful benefactors of heart-warming good deeds, or pitiable people who exist to remind non-disabled people that life could be worse.
Gathering multiple disabled perspectives is helpful, not for the sake of pitting us against each other, but as a reflection of the messy reality, that even on matters relating to, say, disability policy, we'll have a variety of takes.
On that note, centring disabled voices doesn't just involve talking to disabled people advocating on disability policy and the like. We are also parents, teachers, musicians, athletes, CEOs, fashion designers, you name it. Value that expertise.
No more "overcoming disability"
When stories talk about us "overcoming disability", lots of us hear toxic positivity. For many people who've been disabled for some time, the phrase is code for feeling obliged to minimise everything about our bodies and minds that doesn't fit non-disabled norms, in order to survive in a world not designed for us. This is exhausting and it's nothing to celebrate.
We do want to be able to celebrate our real accomplishments, not our blending in or masking or code-switching abilities. It's also ridiculously hard to call for change when it's drilled into us that good disabled people are grateful for care, don't rock the boat and have an unfailingly positive outlook on life.
Give disabled people agency
Unless we ourselves tell you that we are "suffering" from a disability or chronic illness, or "confined" to a wheelchair, we're unlikely to be a fan of that limiting language. It suggests we are inherently vulnerable, taking away the agency we need in order to explain which factors are disabling us. Those factors tend to be ableist policies and attitudes, and we'd love to see more stories about them. Also, disability doesn't have to be in the headline, or even in the story at all, just because a disabled person is.
Employ and commission disabled writers
If the media we produce is going to be reflective of Aotearoa in all its diversity, it does help if the people producing it look like Aotearoa.
Making that happen for disabled people looks like thinking through where job applications and open calls reach, how accessible the recruitment processes and work premises are, and whether there's an open environment where prospective and new employees feel comfortable asking for reasonable accommodations.
Also, just because someone is disabled doesn't automatically mean they want to write, or only write, disability-related stories.
Critique the status quo
Finally, as this brilliant podcast on objectivity and journalism puts it, objectivity is simply the ideology of the status quo.
In this case, the status quo consists of a mostly non-disabled media industry producing stories for a presumed non-disabled audience.
The better served each of us is by that status quo, the less likely we are to ask who it doesn't serve and why. As journalists, I think it's our job to constantly ask ourselves that question and report on what we find.
- Áine Kelly-Costello is a journalist and campaigner from Aotearoa, completing her Masters degree from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
